Step by Step/Issue 23
This is Issue #23 of Step by Step. This is the fifth issue of Volume Four. Depiction Ash covered the floor like dirty snow, a pristine charcoal-colored layer, obscured the floor, burying it like a valley of soil. Papers and all fluttered in the air, burning amongst the cracking air, with the stale air agitating Carter's throat, and roasting the ribbon of flesh that led into his stomach. His belly churned, eyes watery as he opened the door and walked, very slowly, into the main office. Shafts of light broke through the boarded up windows, light streamed into the cooking clinic at first and then throughout the entire offices. It was absolute silence, for the most part, with no signs of life inside. Carter stood, peacefully and taking in full breaths of the gaseous air. It was peaceful, almost enlightening. His mind was a clear bubble, a strong bubble where thoughts were non-existent. His arm felt better, much better. The room's only other occupants, dead as they were, were strewn on the rubble. Carter knelt beside one of the bodies, though at a glance it looked more like a cocoon. It was one of the refugees, which Carter could tell after a long observation. The person, unrecognizable to him was one of the nurse's radicals. No uniform on them, though if there had been it most likely would have been scorched and burnt a dark tint. Carter got up, the cascading fumes twirling around him. The place had a yellowish, fiery haze that hung in the air. The rich, burning smell of the fire permeated the room, tails of silvery smoke combed through the copper air, pushing the flames with the pull of the air. Set alight were the velvet curtains, the fabric of the chairs and cots where some of the radicals had taken to, and the carpet. The rafters crashed into the floor, a cloud of dust springing into Carter's face, and then the floor itself seemed to burn. Varied colors of flame, though all had the unpredictability of nature, stormed around and knocked down the door which led out to the hall. On a roll. Carter walked through the smoldering ruins, noticing a rifle cradled in the arms of one of the bodies, a woman's. A brown, turbid blood formed on her chest, and once Carter spun his head around at the other bodies, he noticed that they'd all met their end with the same rifle, not by the fire. His chest started to pulsate, the buzzing of the flames making ear-splitting sounds now, but Carter was having the time of his life, if not for the damn silence. Silence gnawed at his insides, digging a gaping void in him. He needed to hear himself, hear words or anything else besides the fire. The silence itself was more poisonous than the cancerous air, and it did a better job at choking the life out of him. Carter wasn't used to this silence. It wasn't quiet like in a library, but instead was eerily unnatural like a road with no stuttering cars at mid-day. At first, it'd been peaceful, but now it was noisy with the silence, and it leeched the feeling out of his pores. "Anybody home?" He imagined Caroline calling back, talking to him from the dead. It sent a chill down his back, which was now slick with sweat, cold sweat. He had just about had it. Carter took the rifle from Susie momentarily, ejecting the magazine and, to his surprise, finding out that they had used what was left of the magazine. All at once, he discovered that he was at the center of a graveyard. He found himself screaming, his lungs suddenly exploding with pain, and his hands going around for something to cover his face with. The fire leaped into the air, devouring the oxygen like an famished beast and belched out big black smoke. Carter swiped up something, a piece of lined paper from a stack, but then all of paper escaped into the yellow, glowing haze. Carter swore, pulling his shirt collar upwards to his nose, and hit the floor with his chest. From below, he saw the smoke had risen to the top, overflowing like a balloon until the temptation to rupture it had grown to big to resist. He could hear himself think now, his heart throbbed. The fire had microwaved his lungs, as he now felt them withering. He was dying. Breathing was more easy, as cooler air was brought into his nose and left his mouth, satisfying him. Carter crawled along the floor, passing the clinic where the cots were up in flames, and the floor was covered in piles of ash, burning his fingertips. Someone shouted from outside. It couldn't have been the dead people, they wouldn'ttalk. The voice, short as it was, seemed familiar. Carter moved up, his exposed belly dragging itself along the hell, so he could breath. It was worth it, as soon he was at the door, well where the door should have been. A two-foot tall flame sprouted in the air, before falling downwards as its smoke lingered for a while. Carter crossed over it, not giving a shit whether he died then and there, but cared that he at least would have'd the dignity of escaping the hellhole. The hallway wasn't any better. More blackened cocoons. Carter saw, two people only, in the hall. One was to his left, standing upright, and the other hunched over a body in the eye of the firestorm. That was all he saw because then, as if a whip had been cracked, the walls began to shake. The wallpapers had begun to burn, and the fire had continued to rampage through the school. His blood began to boil, and he figured it wouldn't get any worse, but then he heard a shrilling moan. To his left, where Lyle stood, a parade of undead slowly made their way to them. Carter stood up, cracking his joints, and reached for his holster, but he came back empty-handed. The holster was burning hot, but he made another effort and yanked out his pistol. He couldn't see at first, blinded by both the water in his eyes and the smoke. His vision narrowed, becoming thinner and thinner, and Carter thought he was on the brink of passing out. In a flash of light, a great surge of heat and flame flooded the hall, and he saw through slim eyes that Lyle had jumped out one of the windows. He wobbled on his feet, twisting in the windy ash, and cursed everyone from Brock to the damn mailman. His legs turned into cinder blocks, while the rest of him swayed in the air like a scarecrow. and then splat. His head instantly hurt, pain shooting into his head, though the painkillers muffled some of it. His back was burning, one of his sleeves had caught a spark and had erupted in flames, so he patted it until he was met with the wispy, black remains of cloth. It was then that he realized he was on a roll. He was still alive, sprawled out on the ground, yet surrounded by flames. Before he could question this fate, the fire shot out a yellow hand into the outside through the window, and the heat so great it set alight even the outside walls. Carter moved, slowly at first but then regained motion, until he felt someone take hold him of him. His first reaction was, obviously, to grab his holster, but in the afternoon sun he saw his skin had been replaced with layers of dust and grime, so he let whatever force of nature had decided to drag him, drag him. Though, he did feel some relief when he found out he was being taken away from the scene by someone who was alive. ---- It was happening. The grassy fields, trashed with fly-buzzing bodies, had been glazed in fine layers of ice crystals. Sleet, as it was coined, but for the time being it was bittersweet. Joseph had fallen next to one of the ice paddies, out of relief from running. His head was spinning, dazed, but very well happy that he was now out of the school. The December sun, as dim as it was in the coming of night, hung due west. A buzzard flew near his ear, the hum of its wings annoying him, but in the end he let the bug fly all it wanted. He was outside. The bluegrass rustled underneath him, and Joseph was at peace. For a more than a month, he'd been canned in the school. And for the past week, he'd been on edge, but now he was okay. Would be okay. It was December 9th. The smoke soon reached his nose, and then the black smog flew into his retinas, giving him view of the nightmare he was near. This was Joseph, the soldier who'd been lucky enough to make it out alive, while the fire had fed on the school. As the noise reached him, he heard the great fire crackle. He sat up, staring at the school, watching as the living and the dead ran. He saw Alexander, Eugene too, and the other lucky folks who'd managed to escape. They were racing in a sort of huddled group, like a pack of deer when confronted. Joseph was alright, he was the bird in the air, safe and sound. He heard the honk of a car, and then a Toyota zoomed passed him in a hurry. It wasn't the thought that the car had almost struck him, but the thought of how someone could keep their car keys in check for a week. Joseph's older brother, David, had inherited the family's red Sedan. All of its thirty miles per gallon power, right at the tip of a key. Although, it was used and the paint had begun to scrap, it did the job of taking Joseph here and there. Anywhere was fine, but it was most useful for bringing home trophies. Those carved gold stick men, bats in hand, and in a pitching stance, forever frozen in their pride. That was the good life, had been the good life for a while. However that was the past, what mattered now was that Joseph saw one of the things–a grown man, it seemed–catch him with a glance that led to the crazie walking. The man, from afar, had the side of his face cut down to his neck. He walked in a slow, stupor way, his head looking like his neck had lost a few screws. But it was the moaning, the moaning which Joseph still hadn't gotten used to, that struck him with fear. Joseph was standing, not knowing what to do without his rifle, but after some time he figured doing nothing wouldn't help his ass. Joseph began to walk away, crossing into the pavement, at a much faster pace than the man. The air had started to fill with the smoke, until all there was to breath in was smoke. He'd thought that he had left the mess behind, but obviously the tables were turned on him. This was a whole new ball game. Joseph flagged down Alex, who was catching his breath next to Eugene. He noticed that behind them was a police car, hard to miss because it was long and bulky looking. "You all right?" Alex didn't respond at first, his chest feeling heavy, and his face ransacked with ash. He had made it out in time, following Malcolm had done good, but now he was suffering from crappy breathing. He couldn't see what was going on, coughing while Eugene patted his back. Joseph noticed the boy still had the handgun. "He slipped near the exit," the boy said. Eugene was in no good shape, either. "Have you seen my cousin?" "No." Joseph said, swiping up Eugene's gun for his own. "Take it, I just want to get out of this place." "It was all a big blur, Eugene—" The trunk of the Ford–a black, streamliner Taurus–closed, with a thump. Hector Pacino came around the two, his chest taken over by a ballistics vest, and in his hands was a shotgun. Some say that there are good and bad cops, but that was misunderstanding. On Hector's list, there were cops that could get-er done, and others who watched and waited for the get-er done cops to act. The more effective ones were honest, courageous, corrupt, and stupid enough to leave out small details. Hector was a cop, and he was all of those things. Not all at once, since just one of them at a time could get things done. Hector knew it, and at that moment he was working with two of the traits–courage and stupidity–otherwise known as, bravery. The twelve-gauge fitted his needs, personally and physically. The beast felt lighter than feathers to him, and it would still pack a punch. He hadn't addressed the issue of any interested fellows, coming at him to eat him, but figured he would soon. By the time he had crossed through the soldier and the boy, he had settled to a stop, the gun lifted and prepared to give some fucker a nasty beatdown. The winner was chosen, as a woman slowly walked into his line of sight. The gun sounded, as it was apt to do after being kept unused. The shock, if the crazies did feel shock, came to the woman as she staggered, breathless, and then Hector noticed the shock had done more damage than the blast itself. The shotgun cocked back as fast as he fired again, but he only would need one single shot in the end, since the woman had already hit the floor, so to use any more shots would have been pointless. "Fuck me." Hector looked around, as if he had just awoken from a long slumber. He was at the side of the car's hull, still looking around when Joseph saw Amanda Olson rush out of the blankets of smoke. She said nothing at first, only backed up next to Joseph. It wasn't a time for talking, more than it was a time for trick-or-treating. On that afternoon, a hour before dark, the school was seemingly gone. Without any doubts, the school itself was still there, but whatever still remained standing had been replaced with flames, much like when killer bees swarm and engulf an animal, an already wounded animal. They were at a specific angle where the flames could been seen, beating against the ground and popping back into the air like a ritual of some sort. "I don't want to scare you," she said, "but this is getting out of control." Hector scoffed at her, leveling the shotgun to his standards. "Roads are blocked–for tens of miles it seems." "We aren't going to leave," Amanda said. He looked at her doubtfully. "Fine by me. I ought to take this ride now, yeah? It fits about four people, but if you four want anything to with it, there's enough space for you all to cram right in." "You wouldn't do that." "No?" Alexander was the smaller of the five, barely passing the height requirements, but he was up there in the ranks, somewhere. He could run as far and march as long a distance than any other soldier. He could assemble his rifle in thirty seconds or less, though at the moment he was unarmed. He was still the man that Joseph counted on, to watch his back, but watching him in pain was disturbing. "Malcolm s–said he'd be back." "Yeah, well kid," Hector started. "If I've had enough time to find this bug, open it up, go on a fucking adventure through Narnia in it, and get this shotgun, then he should be here by now." The smoke was getting closer, and soon the air began to get pushed away. There was no doubt that the fire was spreading. Hector knew it, and he wanted to get out of the place fast. If he took some folks with him, then fine. But no freeloaders around him, no thanks. Thunder clapped above them. And then Hector saw thunderheads starting to gather. The sky was a twisted image of what used to be, and what was now a black and purple streak of smoke. Damn smoke. The embers overlapped and bended, sucking up what was left of the world in a chomp-sized gobble of the air. The fire didn't care. If Nature was a god then she was a mighty strong one. It was worse than Amanda had thought. The frames of the school had fallen across the divide in a mess of rubble. Burnt flakes mustered around the air, and the air itself smelled like dirt, though, it also smelled like death. Her medical mask served her like a paper dust mask, one with a hole in it. She couldn't believe the heat; it was so extreme. She held on for a little longer, all that jogging in the past had done her lungs good, but after a while the five of them were full-forced into an ash cloud. Trees, those unfortunately near the school, clattered across the driveway while others stayed aflame. The fire spread on them, wild, lashing in the air and eventually catching some wind. A convenience store, maybe it was a drug store, near the school, was soon illuminated like a lantern. That was all Amanda saw. Cause then she felt a tug on her arm and slipped out of the cloud, and found herself in the inside of the police car. She was in the back, grasping for breath, and fighting to get the smoke out from her; she wondered what was the secret for a smoker to last so long with cigarettes. Her father, his brother, and their father had all been chainers, though her farther had started out unwillingly, as a victim who took in several whiffs of the stuff on accident, until the urge had grown to hard to handle. If there was anything Amanda had never wanted, smoking was on the top of the list. Smelling the lung darts had struck low on it. Her uncle had died the previous April. Cancer, the underlying end of a never-ending cycle. At the moment, however, she would have chosen a smoke. "Hurry it up!" Malcolm was outside of the car, his gas mask covering his face from the horrors. He was blinded, though fortunately could breath. He was getting tired, but he had the advantage now. He had an idea, though he was hesitant relying on ideas while trapped in a firestorm, that they could fall back and then win. It was just a thought, but maybe it didn't have to go down the route he was already set on. What idea was that? AWOL. They were all going AWOL, whether they liked it or not. He moved on, not stopping, not slowing, not reconsidering anything, but he was alive in the cloud of ash. His face, underneath the mask, had its eyes frantic with day's possibility. He could drive down to the King's Christian Church, and he would thus save them all. He didn't need Brock anymore, rubbing his shoes in the dirt and making Malcolm scrape off the shit. No, Malcolm was not a man of that angle. Yes, he would go to the King's Church and succeed with a shining smile–but his heart felt bitter, though the thought of his little boy kept him going. Malcolm patted the edge of the car, letting Hector into the driver's seat. "There's a church, around the avenue. It looks good, and safe." The police officer shook his head. He had better plans. From Indiana, he could drive down the road and into the highway, then the interstates, like I-70. Leave the state, that had damned him to hell and back, and become a rancher on Missourian dirt. Make a living, hauling shit here and there, like a tumbleweed in the old Wild West, with his badge buried under a foundation of Missourian dirt. Malcolm cursed, grabbing Hector by his shoulder. "We need a new place to get shit done, roger that? I'll be there in ten, maybe fifth'en, I'll bring whoever I can, so–" Hector stammered, shuddering as Malcolm tightened his grip on his shoulder. It had once been a gentle squeeze, but the man was now digging his fingers into him. Hector felt immensely smaller right then and there, finding himself shrinking into his seat cushion. He thought that Joseph, who was in the passenger's seat, saw this happen, but really the kid was struggling to catch his breath. "–get to it." Issues Category:Step by Step Category:Category:Step by Step Issues Category:Issues